I just wanted to quickly share something I’ve been working on this past week.

Last year GB and I did the eIditarod, and it was SO much fun that we are going to do it again this year. But I worried that we had done so many activities last year that he may find it less than fun this year if I didn’t come up with something new.

Then, the other night, I woke up in the middle of the night with a great idea. I thought it was a great idea, anyway…. I would make some Iditarod cards with the mushers and dogs on them. And I couldn’t get back to sleep. My mind just wouldn’t shut off. I kept thinking about how I could create them, and how I wanted them to look. Plus, I wanted to tie them in to math, more specifically multiplication, since you know GB struggles with this.

So I decided to make it similar to a card game he got for Christmas. Each player will get a deck that includes mushers, dogs, and items for a well-packed sled. Mushers, dogs, and items can be combined to battle against strong mushers from your opponent’s deck. The decks will also have a few magic cards, like the Aurora Borealis, which I’m thinking will allow you to bring back a musher who has been defeated. Each card will have an attack value, and a defense value. And players will keep four cards on the field (table) and five cards in their hand to battle. I’ll post rules when I get further along.

But I wanted to show you one of the musher cards I made because I’m so excited by how well they’ve been turning out.

GB is pretty excited by my cards and wants me to hurry up and finish them. He keeps trying to get me to make the rules his way. But I think I’ll stick to my guns. I want it to be educational and not just fun. Fun, too, though, it’s gotta be fun.

I’m hoping that when I’m done, my older son, Jabem, can help me put the cards into a downloadable format, so that I can share them. At this stage, I’m not sure how you do that.

Last night, when I was laying in GB’s bed, saying goodnight, he said it had been a great day. So I asked him what had been the best part of the day. I was fully expecting him to say that he had really enjoyed his cousins coming over and having a huge, all-out nerf war. I’m still finding nerf bullets everywhere. I even found one on my aquarium glass! But he surprised me. He said it was a great day because he had his nature class. Isn’t that cute? I’m so glad he’s enjoying this.

This week’s subject was ‘mammals.’ This is a subject near and dear to GB. He loves animals. Christen, the park ranger who leads the group, is coming to know the children by name. She told us that she had noticed several kids who had a look of revulsion on their faces when we all walked in the door. That’s because the tables were filled with taxidermy animals. So she took a moment to explain that all the animals that they use for this class died of natural causes, or were killed by cars. Then they are only used to educate. GB was one of those children. He even raised his hand to ask why people didn’t drive more carefully. Once again…. cute! I love his little animal-loving heart.

In this photo, he’s stroking a bear skin. Once he got over the fact that these were once real animals, he was able to enjoy the chance to touch real animals with no fear of him scaring them, or them attacking him. The bear skin was really soft. And you could even see his paws with claws.

The little baby deer was heart-breakingly adorable. GB stroked them as if they were still alive and needed comforting.

I was shocked to discover that we have bobcats, coyotes, and minks running around our park. The mink was so cute. GB was a little dismayed to learn that his Grandma has a mink coat.

After separating the hair of the beaver, we were able to see the under coat. The taxidermy guy had removed the sharp bristles that usually cover the beaver. This gave the kids the opportunity to really observe him. I should have got a shot of the paddle on his backside because that was really neat. And his paws were webbed to make swimming easier.

This is what we learned today:

Mammal Characteristics

• All mammals are warm blooded.

• Most young are born alive.

• They have hair or fur on their bodies.

• Every mammal is a vertebrate.

• All mammals have lungs to breathe air.

• Mammals feed milk to their babies.

We also touched on the animal classification system. GB and I are going to have to delve into that with a little more depth soon. Maybe I’ll make a unit study for it for next year.

After the class portion comes GB’s favorite part, the outside part. We all tromped through the park trying to find animal tracks. Christen told us that last week when we went out for the archeology dig, she actually saw some coyote scat on the ground. But it was pretty fresh and she didn’t want to get us off track. So, of course, all the kids were convinced that they would find coyote tracks. But this was all we found:

Regular old deer tracks. We actually have quite a few of these in our yard right now. I saw them when I went out to the mailbox. Guess who the last kids to leave the park were? GB and his new friend, H. They were enjoying looking for predator tracks….LOL!

Yeah, I know……. we’re hardly even through with Winter.

My thoughts…. if there isn’t going to be snow on the ground, then I want Spring. I hate to be uselessly cold. Bring on the snow, or bring on the Spring. I just want one good, decent sized snowfall each year. Is that too much to ask for when you live in the central part of Virginia?

Since our snow has been sparse,…. let’s say a dusting….., I’ve been thinking…. Spring. Last year GB and I did a few projects that we really enjoyed. So I think we’ll do them again, and maybe tweak them a tad.

First, we did the Great Backyard Bird Count. We had a really good time. And it helps GB to see all the birds in our yard. Back in ‘03, when Hurricane Isabelle came through here, GB was devastated to see all the trees laying on the ground. His first thought was for all the birds who had lost their homes. That year he went to the bus stop (he was in ps then) and told the other kids that they needed to ask Santa to bring bird houses for the birds. Since then he has populated our yard, my parent’s yard, my in-law’s yard, and several aunt’s, uncle’s, and cousin’s yards with his painted bird houses. It’s become a mission. Click Here and here to see our posts from the GBBC from last year. So we’ll definitely do that again.

Next, I signed us up to receive the kit from the Project Feeder Watch. This is done through the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to help determine migration patterns and see which birds show up at feeders around the country. Martha Stewart had David Bonter from Project Feeder Watch on her show, and you can see the videos from that show by clicking here. What’s great about this project is that they’ve recognized that a lot of homeschoolers are doing it, and they’ve developed a whole unit study lesson plan to accompany the project. My friend, Dana, is going to do this with her daughter down in Texas. So it’ll be interesting to see her results. Especially since she always gets spectacular pictures to go with her observations.

We are also going to do the Tomatosphere Project again this year. You can see all my posts from last year’s project by clicking here. Once again, this is a project that has been recognized as a great homeschool project, so there are plenty of educational materials included on the website. Essentially, we will plant 15 normal seeds in peat pots, and 15 seeds that were exposed to conditions which simulate the process of aerocapture as the space vehicle enters the atmosphere of Mars. We won’t know which seeds are which until the results are tabulated. Our job will be to provide similar ideal circumstances for the seeds to grow, and then to observe any differences between them.

During the past few months GB and I have been studying Chemistry, more specifically polymers. One thing I came upon, during all the material that I read, was that diapers include an absorbable polymer to capture the excess liquid. That same polymer releases the liquid at a controlled rate when left alone. That absorbable polymer can be removed from the diaper and studied. So I thought another interesting aspect that we could apply to the tomatospere project, on our own, is to mix this polymer with soil, and plant a few seeds separately to observe whether the polymer additive helps the plants to grow better. We speculate that the polymer will keep us from going through those wet to dry phases and provide a more stable water level within the plant’s soil.

I also signed GB up for several nature classes at our nearby State Park. There are several Physical Science topics, and several Life Science topics. He’s mostly looking forward to any of them that offer information on animals, birds, and reptiles. And in one of them….. we’re going to build a bluebird house!….LOL! Right up his alley.

So now I guess I’m ready for Spring to get here…………… any day now…………… Oh, man! It’s only January…….

Oh, I’m sore today!

Yesterday our homeschooling group went rock-wall climbing. This is why I needed to be belay certified. I must have belayed at least 30 climbers. It was such an awesome day. And the kids were so pumped for it.

GB is a tiny bit afraid of heights. And the last few times we took him climbing (birthday parties) he would only go half way up. But when he found out that Mom could make it to the tippy top, and his friends were all giving it a go, he decided that he was going to “conquer his fear.”

He made it, though. And it didn’t seem too hard for him. He did a great job placing his feet first and using the leg muscles, not the arm muscles, to push him up the wall. When he got back down he was exhilarated but needed a break. By the time he had gone up three times he felt like his fear had been conquered. And he ended up going up TEN times. He even climbed a rope ladder that goes all the way to the ceiling, which I believe is about 50 feet.

I didn’t get to see him do that, or climb on any other ropes, because my station was always busy with kids and even some moms who had decided to climb. Thanks to my friend, N, who was willing to get some pictures of GB for me. And to my new little friend in the group, S, who declared herself a “natural” with the camera, and proceeded to get a couple of great shots of GB at the top of the wall. Aren’t kids great?!

That’s what GB called our field trip today. We went to our nature class at the state park. And the subject was Archeology.

We began with a discussion about archeology and artifacts.

Our guide is showing the kids a native necklace made from copper, and tiny little shells. GB felt as if a Chief would wear this to signify his importance.

After the discussion, the kids went outside, where the park guides had staked out a fake archeology dig. They had to stress to the kids that this was for educational purposes only. When you go to a park you should never dig anything up or take anything with you. The kids were supposed to pretend that they lived in the 24th century. The guides had buried items that would commonly be found in the 21st century. The area was staked out with string and the kids separated into small groups to dig.

Here, GB is sifting the loose soil to find anything tiny that might be hidden by the soil.

He finds a clothes pin.

Here is GB’s new friend, H, who joined our homeschooling group last week.

Each found item was placed on the piece of paper nearest to their dig site. These two young ladies found a water bottle and a cd case.

After the items had all been dug up, the guide led them through a discussion about what those items would have revealed about the people who had lived there.

That’s why GB called it archeology training.

Those of you who are near and dear, and can appreciate my limited level of athleticism, will totally crack up at the following pictures.

Last night I went to get belay certification with about 12 other homeschooling moms. There is nothing like climbing a rock wall to dispel the image of a frumpy mom! We all had a blast and ended up closing the place down.

Here, we are checking to make sure we’ve gotten all the knots, anchors, and equipment set up right. It is my butt on the line, after all!

The beginning…….

the middle…….

Ta, da!! The tippy top! Thanks to my instructor for snapping these proof-positive pictures. I can’t wait for my sister, B, to see them. She’s a P.E. teacher. She’ll be shocked!

Believe it, or not, I made it up three times. I am so proud of myself because I would have never dreamed that I could do this. It was actually easier than it looks because my legs are way stronger than my arms. So I used my arms to kind of guide and balance me, but I used my legs for the actual climbing.

When we signed up, I just thought we’d be learning without actual people attached, ha-ha-ha!. Or maybe we’d be belaying for the staff….. So I was really unprepared to climb. I only wanted to get certified so that GB could climb at a much reduced price. But this was a very surprisingly fun night.

Thanks to all my homeschool mom friends for slowly pulling me out of my box. I’m getting there, little by little.

We got a bit of snow this past weekend. It didn’t amount to much, but dh and GB had a good time with it anyway. I love my dh’s face in this photo.

We didn’t get enough to actually make a snowman, but we still have hopes for the season.

Up in Harrisonburg, where Aquagirl goes to college, they got a lot more than we did. So she and her friends were able to make much better use of the snowfall. She said it took five of them to get that middle section onto the snowman. And for the top, one of the guys stood on the base while they passed up the head. Huge, huh?

This is Aquagirl and her best friend, Gymbabe.

The word “stencil” is derived from the French estencler meaning to sparkle. The earliest known stencil-like designs first appeared in Western China at the caves of the Thousand Buddhas. Stenciling as a decorative technique spread throughout the Far East and eventually made its way to Europe.

The French first used stencils to decorate playing cards, books, textiles and wallpapers. Often the painted decorative designs simulated brocades and tapestries. Hand stenciled wallpapers became so popular that they appeared in the finest homes all over Europe.

Colonists coming to North America in the the 18th and 19th centuries brought decorative stenciling to this part of the world. Since wall paper was so expensive, this became an affordable alternative. Colonists stenciled on anything they could, paper, wood, and ceramics. Artisans often traveled the countryside plying their trade and talent in homes, churches and public buildings. Eventually their style of decoration became synonymous with American Folk Art.

The pattern for our stencils came from our Colonial Unit cd. I cut it out for GB because with his poor small motor skills, I worried about him using an exacto knife. As you can see from the photos below, he kind of got into the stenciling. I had to remind him that the stipple technique puts the brush straight up and down with a tap, tap, tap motion. He kept angling his brush, which would cause a bit of paint bleeding under the stencil. But other than that he did pretty good.

I don’t think he’s as good as I am about being able to visualize a finished product. Because when he lifted the stencil and saw the pattern underneath, he was very surprised.

He was so impressed with his results, that he claimed it was no wonder the Colonists liked stencils so much. Now that’s a pretty little box.